FairTTTS: A Tree Test Time Simulation Method for Fairness-Aware Classification

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Cohen-Inger, Nurit, Rokach, Lior, Shapira, Bracha, Cohen, Seffi
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Cohen-Inger, Nurit
Rokach, Lior
Shapira, Bracha
Cohen, Seffi
author_facet Cohen-Inger, Nurit
Rokach, Lior
Shapira, Bracha
Cohen, Seffi
contents Algorithmic decision-making has become deeply ingrained in many domains, yet biases in machine learning models can still produce discriminatory outcomes, often harming unprivileged groups. Achieving fair classification is inherently challenging, requiring a careful balance between predictive performance and ethical considerations. We present FairTTTS, a novel post-processing bias mitigation method inspired by the Tree Test Time Simulation (TTTS) method. Originally developed to enhance accuracy and robustness against adversarial inputs through probabilistic decision-path adjustments, TTTS serves as the foundation for FairTTTS. By building on this accuracy-enhancing technique, FairTTTS mitigates bias and improves predictive performance. FairTTTS uses a distance-based heuristic to adjust decisions at protected attribute nodes, ensuring fairness for unprivileged samples. This fairness-oriented adjustment occurs as a post-processing step, allowing FairTTTS to be applied to pre-trained models, diverse datasets, and various fairness metrics without retraining. Extensive evaluation on seven benchmark datasets shows that FairTTTS outperforms traditional methods in fairness improvement, achieving a 20.96% average increase over the baseline compared to 18.78% for related work, and further enhances accuracy by 0.55%. In contrast, competing methods typically reduce accuracy by 0.42%. These results confirm that FairTTTS effectively promotes more equitable decision-making while simultaneously improving predictive performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_08155
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FairTTTS: A Tree Test Time Simulation Method for Fairness-Aware Classification
Cohen-Inger, Nurit
Rokach, Lior
Shapira, Bracha
Cohen, Seffi
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Algorithmic decision-making has become deeply ingrained in many domains, yet biases in machine learning models can still produce discriminatory outcomes, often harming unprivileged groups. Achieving fair classification is inherently challenging, requiring a careful balance between predictive performance and ethical considerations. We present FairTTTS, a novel post-processing bias mitigation method inspired by the Tree Test Time Simulation (TTTS) method. Originally developed to enhance accuracy and robustness against adversarial inputs through probabilistic decision-path adjustments, TTTS serves as the foundation for FairTTTS. By building on this accuracy-enhancing technique, FairTTTS mitigates bias and improves predictive performance. FairTTTS uses a distance-based heuristic to adjust decisions at protected attribute nodes, ensuring fairness for unprivileged samples. This fairness-oriented adjustment occurs as a post-processing step, allowing FairTTTS to be applied to pre-trained models, diverse datasets, and various fairness metrics without retraining. Extensive evaluation on seven benchmark datasets shows that FairTTTS outperforms traditional methods in fairness improvement, achieving a 20.96% average increase over the baseline compared to 18.78% for related work, and further enhances accuracy by 0.55%. In contrast, competing methods typically reduce accuracy by 0.42%. These results confirm that FairTTTS effectively promotes more equitable decision-making while simultaneously improving predictive performance.
title FairTTTS: A Tree Test Time Simulation Method for Fairness-Aware Classification
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08155